Trump's EPA nominee makes eco-misanthropes and red-greens howl
Donald Trump made another excellent nomination, of Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt for EPA administrator. But you wouldn't know it by reading the mainstream media, who criticized Pruitt for being "too friendly" to fossil fuel producers in his fight against Obama energy regulations.
At the heart of Mr. Obama's efforts to tackle climate change are a collection of E.P.A. regulations aimed at forcing power plants to significantly reduce their emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide pollution.
They are being forced to reduce their emissions, all right – by shutting down, reducing the overall power supply available to the nation as a whole, as part of Obama's illegal "Clean Power Plan" regulations designed to shut down coal and other fossil fuel power plants, even though we currently have nothing to replace them with.
As Mr. Pruitt has sought to use legal tools to fight environmental regulations on the oil and gas companies that are a major part of his state's economy, he has also worked with those companies. A 2014 investigation by The Times found that energy lobbyists drafted letters for Mr. Pruitt to send, on state stationery, to the E.P.A., the Interior Department, the Office of Management and Budget and even President Obama, outlining the economic hardship of the environmental rules.
Here's an original thought: Mr. Pruitt didn't just ally himself with oil and gas companies; he allied himself with every consumer who uses oil and gas and wants to continue to do so at affordable prices.
Here's what one red-green had to say about Mr. Pruitt:
"At a time when climate change is the great environmental threat to the entire planet, it is sad and dangerous that Mr. Trump has nominated Scott Pruitt to lead the E.P.A.," said Senator Bernie Sanders. ... "The American people must demand leaders who are willing to transform our energy system away from fossil fuels. I will vigorously oppose this nomination."
Climate change is the greatest environmental threat? What about our greatest threat, period, such as radical Islam, unchecked illegal immigration, and our enormous national debt? These things will destroy us long before fictional global warming. And the American people are not demanding we move away from fossil fuels. They use more fossil fuels than ever. It is political commissars like Bernie who are making the demands.
Here's what others said:
Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz (D) told reporters that Pruitt's selection is "the worst-case scenario when it comes to clean air, clean water."
The Clean Power regulations have nothing to do with clean air or water. They are focused fighting imaginary global warming.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the incoming minority leader, said in a statement that Pruitt has shown a "reluctance to accept the facts or science on climate change" and "has a troubling history of advocating on behalf of big oil at the expense of public health."
That's a laugh. Talk about public health to the people in Africa and Asia who don't have electricity, who live in a Stone-Age lifestyle. "Big oil" not only gives us a high standard of living, but powers machines and devices that manufacture medicines and keep us alive.
"It's often said that personnel is policy, and President-elect Trump's decision to nominate someone who has spent his career catering to Big Polluters speaks volumes," League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski said in a statement.
Do you think Gene Karpinski puts gasoline in his car or powers his home with oil? If so, has he spent his life "catering" to big polluters as well? As for "speaking volumes," that's all people like Karpinski, who have never produced anything of value in their lives, are capable of doing.
He goes on:
All people in this country have a right to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and enjoy the economic and health benefits of the clean energy revolution, and it's vitally important that we have an EPA administrator who respects those rights.
Do people also have the right to have affordable electricity? Do people have the right to have power in their home and a car that can drive for several hours at a time and all the benefits of technology that a stable, cheap source of electricity gives us? Notice that Gene never talks about that. That's because he's part of the red-green movement that wants to force America to deindustrialize. Self-hating misanthropes like Gene put the fictional risk to the Earth above the well-being of Americans who don't want to pay double or triple for electricity.
Ed Straker is the senior writer at NewsMachete.com.